Please help liberate us from purchasing Dell!

F

fireseed

New Member
I've been reading around a lot; the 101's here, and much general discussion all over the web on the benefits of building your own computer, and moreover of not buying from the main companies unless you have an ass ton of cash to throw around.

Me and my spouse are tired of having crappy computers and wanted to invest a modest amount of time and money on something good...
I know that most of you here are exceptionally experienced and willing to help out, so if any of you are willing to part some advice, here' the down-lo

The programs we would primarily running from day to day are:

Photoshop Cs2 or 3. Reason 4. Corel painter 9. FlashMX. UltraFractal 4. Apophysis. As well as messenger and more tabs in Firefox then most would ever deem necessary.
We are working on a sound library which i|s getting up to 60+ gigs and I wouldn't be suprised if it was 150+ over the next year or two.
That, combined with years worth of photos, videos and pictures.

Thats about it.

Now to make things easier still, we went to dell.com and 'built' the computer that we figure we would be buying from them if salvation was not to be found.
Here it i|s: ..............

XPS 420
Starting Price $1,999
INSTANT SAVINGS!!!! $100
Subtotal $1,899


Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB) S3Q66H [223-2365] 1
Operating System:
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium VHP3E [313-5656][420-5769][420-5924][420-6436][420-6541][420-7622][463-2282] 11
Memory:
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs 4GB84 [311-7667] 3
Hard Drive:
1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs) 1000R0 [341-5684] 8
Optical Drive:
Single Drive: Blu-ray Disc Drive (BD/DVD/CD burner w/double layer BD write BDD [313-4789][420-6924][420-6925][420-7616] 16
Monitors:
No Monitor N [320-6200] 5
Video Cards:
256MB Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT X2600XT [320-5954] 6
Sound Cards:
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio IS [313-2758] 17
Bluetooth Options:
Dell 19 in 1 Media Reader with Bluetooth BTMCR19 [341-5701] 815
Keyboard:
No Keyboard N [310-3798] 4
Mouse:
No Mouse NM [310-3799] 12
Floppy Drive and Media Reader:
Dell Media Card Reader included in Dell Bluetooth Package NMEDCRD [341-5593] 10
Wireless Networking and Modem:
No Modem Requested N [313-3607] 14
Labels:
Windows Vista™ Premium VPD [310-8626] 750
Adobe Software:
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 AAREAD [420-7468] 15
Speakers:
Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer A525 [313-4032] 18
Adobe Elements Studio:
Adobe Elements Studio for XPS™ 420 ADBES [420-7649] 819
Security Software:
No Security NOAV [461-8389] 25
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed):
No Productivity software pre-installed MSONO [412-1397] 22
Dell Digital Entertainment:
No Entertainment software pre-installed NODE [464-9572] 399
Warranty & Service:
1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor,24x7 Phone Support S111OS [950-3337][950-9797][960-8700][983-9470][988-2217] 29
Datasafe:
Free 10GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Year DASF10G [420-7091][420-7285][987-7449][988-0099] 813
Internet Access Service:
No ISP requested NISP [412-0148] 37


Hope that's not too much info....



For details on functionality:
We hope to not ever download directly onto it, but to do all downloading on the lesser comp,
scan the hell out of it somehow and find an efficient way to transfer it all in hopes of keeping it extra safe. Don't trust mainstream virus scanners...but downloaded nod32 on other computer and it seems to be doing well, so might try that for this one too.

So....yeah.
SAVE US PLEASE!!!:eek:
 
hopefully around 2grand... up to 2300
and no we don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor

...you guys should really be getting paid for this:)
 
Naw, you wouldn't want me to if you knew some things :P

Well... 2k is VERY BIG OVERKILL. Seriously, $1000 is a great budget already, you sure about that high?
 
Do you really need or want that blue ray drive? That can add a lot to the cost.

I can't believe that Dell was going to charge that much and it only had a ATI 2600 video card in it.

For what you want you should not have to pay more than $1500, more like around $1000.

Listen to Oscaryu1. He is pretty good about picking parts.
 
http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A1938452
Q6600 G0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
P35-DS3L

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118003
Sony NEC EIDE DVD Burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151
WDC GP 16MB SATAII 1TB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002
OCZ GameXStream 700W

http://www.securemart.com/cgi-bin/future/SMA0092053.html?pcode=1
Antec 900 ATX Case

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=29&sku=A1350995
XFX GeForce 8800GT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116215
Vista Ultimate 64bit

http://216.52.208.185/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220144
Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB DDR2-800 (x2 for 4GB)

Total after rebates including shipping (except Dell and Securemart): $1355.22
 
the blu ray would just be for using the computer as a dvd player?
we still want to be able to burn cds and dvds though.... so what other options do we have?
 
what about the other specs?
i know that with dell, or any other, it'll be a bit more than building it yourself...but the thing is, building it yourself tends to work best when you have more then lamens knowledge of computers...if we can get the specs right, and not too high for what we are looking to use it for, might it be best to go with them anyway? I know it's a bit of a cop out, but the customer support, although i'm sure isn't the greatest, might come in handy for us in the long run?
 
The p180 might be a better case, but I have not used one.

fireseed, If you have kids, do you want to keep them out of this system? If so do you want a locking door? That way they can not even turn the system on.

Instead of a Blueray, you can get a standard DVD burner. They also burn CD's. The one Oscaryu1 listed is a good one. It even burns Dual Layer DVD's.
 
that, and we were hoping to have it at least AROUND Christmas.... with what i suppose is a modest room for error... with ordering all the parts separate and setting it up ourselves, wouldn't the time factor differ a lot for the two choices, and reasonably be factored into the cost if you are working on a time line?
 
fireseed said:
what about the other specs?
i know that with dell, or any other, it'll be a bit more than building it yourself...but the thing is, building it yourself tends to work best when you have more then lamens knowledge of computers...if we can get the specs right, and not too high for what we are looking to use it for, might it be best to go with them anyway? I know it's a bit of a cop out, but the customer support, although i'm sure isn't the greatest, might come in handy for us in the long run?
Click to expand...


In the long run, building it yourself is better. That way you get the joys of learning how a computer works, instead of having to deal with some idiot that is reading from a book giving you possible solutions to your problem.

Dell Tech support is really really bad! Almost anyone here on this forum would be better at actually figuring out what your problem could be than those people Dell hires to work their tech support line.

Dell (and all of the other big companys) will never give you the exact parts you want. You always have to settle for something less than you want/need.

Dell also uses the cheapest parts they can find. Pick any of their systems, from one build to the next one (same model) you might get a good western digital hard drive, but the next one on the assembly line might get a cheap maxtor drive. You just don't know.

Thats how they keep their profit margins high in this world of low margin computers. They buy the parts by the thousand for the lowest price they can get. When that thousand runs out, they get the next lowest bid for parts they can.

Dells are mostly proprietary. They use BTX mother boards, non standard power supplys and custom cases. They are almost impossible to upgrade later on.

But it's up to you.
 
fireseed said:
that, and we were hoping to have it at least AROUND Christmas.... with what i suppose is a modest room for error... with ordering all the parts separate and setting it up ourselves, wouldn't the time factor differ a lot for the two choices, and reasonably be factored into the cost if you are working on a time line?
Click to expand...

Building a computer is easy! And if you wait till Christmas, prices will drop alot :) New processors will also be out.
 
Hello, talking about building computers , can someone tell me of a place (probably here) or book that can be had for a total rookie on building your own computer.
I really want to build my own computer (thats why i'm here to soak all this in) but i need to learn the parts breakdown. I'm wondering if there is a transparent pic or something showing all the internal parts and there importance? Sorry , i'm a motorhead and have to build my own stuff like this. But i'm basically lost on what makes a computer tick. doug
 
Dug3x3 said:
Hello, talking about building computers , can someone tell me of a place (probably here) or book that can be had for a total rookie on building your own computer.
I really want to build my own computer (thats why i'm here to soak all this in) but i need to learn the parts breakdown. I'm wondering if there is a transparent pic or something showing all the internal parts and there importance? Sorry , i'm a motorhead and have to build my own stuff like this. But i'm basically lost on what makes a computer tick. doug
Click to expand...


Dug, please start your own thread and we would be happy to help.
 
oscaryu1 that is a great computer for that price

Building isn't really that hard even if you don't know anything about computer
 
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